


you can't cross the same river twice

by necromantrix



Category: The Evil Within (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon, Unofficial Sequel, everything about this fic (including the title) is a wip, ft. horror! violence! character development!, if you die in stem you don't die in real life fun fact, it's just a preview chapter to gauge interest!!, welcome to "what tew3 should be!"
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-08-13 22:10:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16480685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/necromantrix/pseuds/necromantrix
Summary: STEM never really lets you go, or maybe it’s that it never really leaves you. I don’t know which it is. Maybe it’s both, and it’s using the echoes left within me to call me home.I’m going back. But this time I’m not leaving it standing.Sebastian doesn't want to get involved again, but there's a move to take MOBIUS down. Lily takes up the mantle behind her parents' backs (and she has some help to do it).





	you can't cross the same river twice

“MOBIUS is on the move again.”

“No.”

“What?”

“No. I’m not getting involved in this again—for my sake, for—for Lily’s sake. Myra. I can’t start with this shit again.”

“Sebastian—"

“I’m sorry, Kidman. We’re safe now. Do you know how nice the last few years have been? Without being afraid?”

Kidman sighs, and Lily can practically feel her sympathy from where she’s standing, concealed behind a hall door frame. “I know, and you have every right to not want to get involved. But after everything they’ve done, we have a chance here, Sebastian. Something real. More than we ever have before.”

Her father’s hesitation is almost palpable, and she knows him well enough to know that he’s shaking his head as he thinks. “I’m sorry. I really am. But I can’t drag us all into this again.” MOBIUS is supposed to be gone. They were supposed to have been destroyed seven years ago. The chips in their brains were fried, leaving most operatives dead. But maybe... maybe the higher-ups were exempt. That's a weak point, after all, and not having one would be the safer bet. They must have started up again in the last seven years, and that thought is terrifying.

There’s a moment of silence, something tense and somber, and then she hears Kidman standing. “All right. I’m sorry for bothering you. I just thought maybe you wanted to see this through to the end.” Lily can hear as her footsteps start making their way to the door, but then that sound is quickly drowned out by how quickly Sebastian stands up.

“Don’t start with that bullshit—”

“I meant what I said, Sebastian. You won’t get me to take it back. I thought you would want to see this through, but you don’t. That’s fine. But that’s why I came to you. We’ll have to find another way.” She doesn’t explain who  _ we _ is, and Sebastian doesn’t ask.  She opens the door, and it swings shut behind her as she leaves.

Lily stands with her back to the wall, the sound of her pulse echoing in her ears.  _MOBIUS is on the move again._ She's drawn back, unwillingly, to the five years spent in their custody. It's five years she's coping well with, but it's five years she's forced to cope with.  MOBIUS had her for five years of her life—still more than a quarter of it at seventeen—and some part of her, tucked away beneath the loving, empathetic parts of her, is a desire to take them down. It’s both a desire for vengeance, and a desire to protect. Who knows if there are other girls like her, ones who have been taken and held for years. Ones who don't have Sebastian Castellanos to track them down and free them.

Ones who haven't been rescued. Ones who won't be rescued.

Lily makes a choice, and it's a dangerous one.

 

* * *

 

 

“Kidman! I want to help.”

“What? Lily—"

It's been a week since she overheard the conversation between Kidman and her dad, and she's been preparing for this moment ever since. Truth be told, she's been preparing for most of her life since her rescue from STEM—self-defense classes that her parents know about, offensive fighting classes that they don't. Practicing ciphers and codes and learning, always learning, what she can.

“I want to help take MOBIUS down, even if dad won’t.”

Kidman stares at her, and it's impossible for Lily to read her expression. There's something soft and concerned in her eyes, but there's also something else there. (Maybe's it's her ability to manipulate showing through, and how she wants MOBIUS taken down more than she cares what Sebastian thinks about getting Lily involved. But Lily isn't sure and has no way of being sure.)

"I should say no," she says with a heavy sigh. "But okay. You're your parents' daughter after all; there's really no telling you 'no.' You'll be safe. We have a plan." There's the  _we_ again, and Kidman's expression turns apologetic as Lily asks who  _we_ is.

 

* * *

 

 

"You two are going in alone," Kidman tells Lily and Stefano, "but you won't be alone for long." Her gaze flicks to Lily in particular. "Joseph Oda is inside. We've located him."

Lily inhales a bit sharply as her pulse surges. She doesn't remember him, but she knows  _of_ him. Jo. Uncle Jo. Her father's best friend and partner in the KCPD. He went missing a few years after she did, also connected to MOBIUS.

"So, this  _Joseph,_ " Stefano begins, waving a hand out to his side, "he's an ally against MOBIUS. How do we find him?"

Kidman looks at him again, whatever emotion she had when looking at Lily slipping from her face until she's giving him nothing more than a blank stare. It's obvious to Lily, both through just watching Kidman's interactions with him as well as from her description of the plan, that she doesn't care much for him, if at all.

_ He's _   _insurance,_ she'd said.  _You know he tries to stay on your father's good side._ Lily does. It's sort of weird.  _He won't let anything happen to you. It also helps that he harbors a personal grudge against MOBIUS like the rest of us. He'll be useful._

"He's given us his specific location. You'll be entered into STEM nearby."

STEM. Despite everything, despite what should have been its destruction, its still standing. There must have been a backup of sorts, something that couldn't be so easily destroyed even once a core was removed. An echo of what it was seven years ago—a remnant, a copy. It's almost impossible to tell the differences other than what's from a natural progression of time.

"As for the next steps, Joseph will brief you, and I'll be there every step of the way. Vocally, at least."

Lily clenches her fists to stop her hands from shaking. Nerves. Anxiety. She times her breathing and makes a mental list of things her dad would hate about this situation:

  1. She's going against MOBIUS.
  2. She's going into STEM again.
  3. She's putting her life more or less into Stefano's hands.
  4. He's not there.
  5. She's doing it all behind his back.



Perfect. She just has to pray he doesn't find out.

"I should also warn you that STEM's... _changed_ ," Kidman continues. "I don't know how to explain it; I've never been inside. But it's different, from what I've been told. After our attempt to take it down, it's... trying to protect itself. That's all I feel qualified to say."

Finally, Lily and Stefano exchange a glance, and neither of them wants to read the other's expression.

But it's too late to back out now, they both know, and so they don't. Instead, they allow themselves to be secured in, strapped in, and connected to the network that makes up STEM.

"It's no longer Union in there. It's something else. Something different. STEM operated without a core for too long and now it's become something entirely its own." It's a final warning from Kidman. "Be careful in there, please." She only looks at Lily as she makes this final request, and Lily swallows thickly.

She nods, and then the world fades for both of them.

 

* * *

 

 

Lily hardly remembers entering STEM the first time. Stefano remembers.

This is different, and yet so terribly familiar. Entering STEM is free falling and G-forces and an almost drunken swirl of your mind. It's darkness and drowning and breathing in too much oxygen but also not enough. It's every contradictory feeling as your mind is drawn into itself and then even further—into something that's not just you, but is every person whose ever been inside STEM.

And then it's nothing but blackness as shoes touch water that isn't wet at the outskirts, the barrier between STEM and your own mind.

"That was more unpleasant than I remembered," Stefano says as he gets his bearings, and he glances to Lily. Her eyes are closed for the moment, but she opens them to look at him. She doesn't respond to the question, instead positing one of her own.

"Does STEM haunt you?" she asks. "Out there, I mean." There's something in her eyes that has him unable to ignore her question—they look just as haunted as she feels now that she's back, and she's suddenly wondering if this was a bad idea all along.

They haven't even set foot inside STEM proper, and already she knows something is wrong.

"Yes, but I wonder if it's different for you, having been the core." There are dreams, sure, and nightmares too; there are bleeding thoughts at the edge of his mind on some days that he knows were never truly his. But he was always  _himself_ within STEM, while the core was always supposed to be something bigger, something more.

"Maybe," she muses distantly, turning her face to the light in the darkness. She takes a breath and doesn't say anything else as she sets off towards it. Stefano has no real choice but to follow.

The light is everything as they step into it, and then it's gone like it was never there, leaving them with a view of what STEM has become. Kidman was right when she said it was different. Things are all wrong now. While previously Union was a cohesive town, obviously built up as a legitimate town, now things are....  _wrong._ There are conflicting architecture styles, but not just between neighboring buildings—within individual buildings, too. Columns that don't match porch styles, roofs that don't match exterior shapes. Layouts that don't match the exterior style. Beyond that, they just look  _wrong._ There's something almost unstable about them, as though they can change at any point.

The entire place is like this, they realize as they stop focusing on just the buildings. The sky is day and dusk and night all at once. The ground is solid and crumbling and also not the ground.

STEM is wrong, and they're standing right in the middle of it.

**Author's Note:**

> happy halloween!! here's the start of my very self-serving fic, and here are some hints/facts about things to come!
> 
> \- no one tell mom anything  
> \- stef just wants sebastian to tell him he's good :////  
> \- stem is arguably sentient and doesn't want to be killed (think of anima as a "face" of stem, but there's more to it than that; this is what happens when you connect so many minds, damn)  
> \- stem also kinda haunts you and no one ever talks about it  
> \- lily is a badass child who says "fuck" all the time  
> \- hell squad is a disaster  
> \- lily vs stem willpower fight (aka stem recognizes what was once a core)  
> \- obscura, baby girl, i love you  
> \- does lily get a gun? stay tuned to find out!!
> 
> the title is from "rain in soho" by the mountain goats, which is a mood  
> shoutout to some friends (toast and kitty) for enabling me!!


End file.
